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The East African Development Bank is to start financing development programmes in partnership with the private sector.? At the bank’s governing council meeting held recently in Kampala, proposals to develop a variety of development finance products were unveiled. The East African Community member states have endorsed the bank board’s proposal to provide additional capital to strengthen its equity base and fund expanded operations. The African Development Bank (ADB), which is a shar...News
By Abraham M. George ? According to the World Bank, by the broader international definition of poverty ($2.00 or less per day per person), there are more poor people in the world today than there were a quarter century ago. Yet, during the same period, the strategy for alleviating poverty across practically every developing nation has remained essentially the same. The assumptions that underlie the present approach to combating poverty are flawed on at least three count...Blog Post
Aavishkaar, the Indian micro venture capital fund that we?ve profiled on NextBillion and in GreenBiz, has been awarded the World Business Award as one of the top ten business models of the world contributing to the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals. Other winners of the award...
Aavishkaar Wins World Business AwardBlog Post
Every year, smoke from traditional stoves fueled by wood is responsible for 1.5 million deaths. Sub-Saharan Africa and South East Asia are particularly affected. Now a new report from the World Health Organization makes the business case for investing in cleaner household fuels. The report...
The Business Case for Clean CookingNews
Hear the word poverty, and the image of a bright-eyed child with an extended hand staring at you from the TV screen appears in your mind. Put the word business next to it, and the mental screen turns off, failing under the pressure of the oxymoron. Business and poverty are almost mutually exclusive; the affluence and life force of one is incompatible with the misery and lifelessness of the other. Or is it? Over the last f...
The Business of Development: Innovation, Profits, and the Common GoodNews
Bajaj Allianz notches up some good numbers selling life insurance in India?s smaller towns. Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance was languishing among the also-rans about a year ago. Today, it is in the reckoning for the top slot among private sector life insurers. The credit for this goes to Sam Ghosh, Bajaj Allianz?s CEO and country head for Allianz, who transformed the company from a niche play to mass marketer. Ghosh was chosen to spearhead Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance in January 2004, after he deli...
Life insurance coming to rural India, 1 town/dayNews
In Chile, a novel training program pairs business-school students with low-income entrepreneurs in a mutually enriching partnership. By Nicole Keller When M?nica Civilo decided to start her own business, she felt disadvantaged because she had no access to financing. (Banks generally require businesses to be up and running, or at least to put up collateral for a loan.) Once she did manage to get the money together, the family toymaker found herself in a complicated situation. ?...
Incubating EntrepreneursNews
A Chinese company has developed the first computer costing around 1,000 yuan (125 U.S. dollars) using a Chinese-made Godson II CPU, and plans to put the computers into industrial production in June. We hope everyone can afford our computers, said Zhang Fuxin, an expert of the Institute of Computing Technology (ICT) under the Chinese?Academy?of?Sciences in charge of developing Longmeng computers. Last...
China to produce low-cost computers of its own
